U.S. intelligence agencies monitoring Chinas Internet say that from March 14 to Wednesday bloggers circulated alarming reports of tanks entering Beijing and shots being fired in the city as part of what is said to have been a high-level political battle among party leaders - and even a possible military coup.

The Internet discussions included photos posted online of tanks and other military vehicles moving around Beijing.

I spent some time in China a couple of years ago. My last night there I was out to dinner with two mid-level state department folk; one was going to be leaving soon as well. Discussing this the other said, âI wish it was me - this place is going to go.â The other agreed and explained the problem: As the Chinese economy has grown, virtually all the wealth is going to the major cities and creating a class of oligarchs. Their expectation is that the Army will do what they are told and keep the peace. The problem is that the military rank and file are farm boys whose parents are patriots who feel that they are being excluded from the new prosperity and in effect being cheated for toeing the line. Blood being thicker than water, when the SHTF the Army will side with the country folk.

Foreign Chinese-language media with reporters in Beijing have nothing about it, other than reporting on "rumors" transmitted on blogs. I have been unable to find any of these pictures of tanks on the streets of Beijing.

Last week Chinese PM Wen Jiabao did give a rather extraordinary speech at the party congress reminding everyone that in China the Party should lead the military. Since then two guys from another faction named Bo Xilai and now, apparently, Zhou Yongkang have been removed from their positions, and it was their faction that supposedly launched this "coup." But other than at the Falun Gong publication Epoch Times, there is nothing but people on blogs reporting other people's rumors. So I am inclined to discount this, which is expected during a leadership transition in the new China where there is enough freedom of speech to say that you heard a rumor but not enough freedom of the press to actually look into it.

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